Morning:
8°c
Now I know that the sight of Alastair Campbell is enough to put some people off their breakfast but it's quite something that his presence for a mere week at the New Statesman should unleash such a rip-roaring feud.
The very talented Suzanne Moore, one of the magazine's most readable writers, has quit in protest at this brief gig. I'm not sure the Statesman got much of a bargain by letting Mr Campbell indulge his homo-erotic worship of Alex Ferguson, in return (or rather preturn) for losing Ms Moore. Mr Campbell, meanwhile, claims not to know Ms Moore has written in the Statesman (for 20 years, so he had time to catch it) and says he "never reads the Mail on Sunday". If you say so, Ali.
Either way, it restores to the house journal of the Left the ancient culture of the great in-fight. The magazine's Fabian founders started life with a feud: over whether the secretary should be a paid post. The Webbs thought so, Mrs Hubert Bland (aka the writer E Nesbit) campaigned against - and the whole episode is recounted as a major power struggle in HG Wells's reminiscences.
I rather regret, covering politics in its nuances today, having missed out on the great heyday rows like Ernie Bevin's one with Peter Mandelson's grandfather, Herbert Morrison. "He's his own worst enemy," said one Morrison sympathiser. "Not while I'm alive," retorted Bevin.
I dare say a lively "New Left" at odds with capitalism, globalisation and any war that isn't anti-American should have its space to grow and dissent from the oldsters. And just as sure they will end up with some rocking feuds of their own. It's in the bloodline.
* Overheard in Chapel Market on Saturday. Trade: "Roll up for the latest Islington dinner party speciality - wasabi ravioli." The great N1 dinner party isn't what it was in terms of great ideological arguments, either: everyone hates bankers who isn't one. So I was pleased to hear from a friend who had invited her son's schoolfriend round to play Monopoly that a fellow parent had been outraged at this inculcation of capitalism into the young. La Lutta continua, up our way.
* The Standard's picture of Nigella Lawson and Charles Saatchi lunching out will be scarily familiar to all married couples. Frame one: Nigella takes a mobile phone call. Men hate women talking on the phone if they can't get out of the way. Frame Two: Nigella makes an animated point. Husband responds by keeping arms folded across chest, translation: "Of course, darling, if you say so." Frame three: husband looks bored and lovely Nigella is wheedling, "What's the matter?" All men know the answer: "Nothing (I was just trying to get a word in").
